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Hipster Lit

Hip*ster: one who possesses tastes, social attitudes and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term "cool." A Hipster would say instead "deck."

The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not one of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than two-per-cent body fat.

- The Hipster Handbook by Robert Lanham

After reading Robert Lanham’s Hipster Handbook (Anchor, $14.95), would-be hipsters will make their way to bookstores with a long list of required reading. "All hipsters are selective about reading and wouldn’t be caught dead reading garbage written by Tom Clancy, Belva Plain or Nora Roberts," writes Lanham. "Hipsters often allow hip books to dangle from their bags to show others how cutting-edge they are."

Here’s Lanham’s must reads for the hipster crowd:

  1. 1.
    Frisk
    by Dennis Cooper

    Drag me to re-order


  2. 2.
    Franny and Zooey
    by J.D. Salinger

    Drag me to re-order


  3. 3.
    High Fidelity
    by Nick Hornby

    Drag me to re-order


  4. 4.
    Valley of the Dolls (Susann, Jacqueline)
    by Jacqueline Susann

    Drag me to re-order


  5. 5.
    Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes
    by Terry Southern

    Drag me to re-order


  6. 6.
    The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel
    by Haruki Murakami

    Drag me to re-order


  7. 7.
    Infinite Jest: A Novel
    by David Foster Wallace

    Drag me to re-order


  8. 8.
    Notable American Women: A Novel
    by Ben Marcus

    Drag me to re-order


  9. 9.
    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
    by Dave Eggers

    Drag me to re-order


  10. 10.
    The Killer Inside Me
    by Jim Thompson

    Drag me to re-order


  11. 11.
    Delta of Venus
    by Anais Nin

    Drag me to re-order


  12. 12.
    Mason & Dixon
    by Thomas Pynchon

    Drag me to re-order


  13. 13.
    Cathedral
    by Raymond Carver

    Drag me to re-order


  14. 14.

  15. 15.
    A Moveable Feast
    by Ernest Hemingway

    Drag me to re-order


  16. 16.
    Hell's Angels
    by Hunter S. Thompson

    Drag me to re-order


  17. 17.
    Great Jones Street (Contemporary American Fiction)
    by Don DeLillo

    Drag me to re-order


  18. 18.
    Farewell, My Lovely
    by Raymond Chandler

    Drag me to re-order


  19. 19.
    We: A Novel of the Future (Transaction Large Print Books)
    by Eugene Zamiatin

    Drag me to re-order


  20. 20.
    The Stranger
    by Albert Camus

    Drag me to re-order


  21. 21.
    London Fields
    by Martin Amis

    Drag me to re-order


  22. 22.
    Mama Black Widow
    by Iceberg Slim

    Drag me to re-order


  23. 23.
    Tropic of Cancer
    by Henry Miller

    Drag me to re-order


  24. 24.
    White Teeth: A Novel
    by Zadie Smith

    Drag me to re-order


  25. 25.
    Naked
    by David Sedaris

    Drag me to re-order


This is a community list. You can contribute, edit, or help maintain it by adding it to your lists.
Created by starlagurl on Mar 26, 2006.
 

Comments

Perlle
East Hampton

A rival book — 3 years ago

Hip, the History, was written along the same lines, but more academic.
http://www.listsofbests.com/list/10103


starlagurl
Ottawa

Untitled — 3 years ago

Oh and Mr. Eggers isn’t THAT bad, come on now, Mr. Phillips.


starlagurl
Ottawa

Untitled — 3 years ago

Haha, yeah this list is pretty crappy. I read them all because hipsters are amusing to me and I wanted to see into their brains!


Christopher
Peterborough

Untitled — 3 years ago

Reading David Sedaris is definitely required to be a hipster.

A Heartbreaking Work, though, was one of the biggest wastes of time I’ve ever read. I have never encountered a more self-absorbed and dull author.


Randy
Tijuana

two-per-cent body fat? — 3 years ago

So that settles it, je ne suis pas une hipster.